Appearance.Ranleshhave a long cylindrical
shaped body and in general resemble
snakes or lizards. They have no eyes, legs or a mouth
and are approximately 0.3 peds in length. They
move in a sidewinder fashion.One end is tapered into a
point and the other briefly broadens, thennarrows into a small squared off end (about 0.1
ped wide). They are jet
black in colour and always look
wet.Dwarves know the creature as Morsek
Avarim ("Morsek
Avarim", meaning
"Black Life"). Special Abilities.Attacking the Ranlesh with edged weapons will only split
the beast in two parts. As the Ranlesh reproduce
through asexual division, each piece then becomes a
completely new creature, only part the size of the
original. Only attacks with blunt weapons or fire
will cause real damage.
Ranlesh can also secrete a corrosive saliva
through their skin. This saliva can be harvested and used as
Ranlesh Venom in order to give
certain weapons a little toxical extra power.

Territory.
Ranlesh can be found exclusively in swamps and marsh areas,
e.g. in the SantharianSeanian swamps, southeast of the Ancythrian Sea. Habitat/Behaviour. Ranlesh move around by sending out a high frequency pulse from along the length of
its
body and sense the feedback as it bounces of objects in its path.
In general Ranlesh are very
solitary creatures with a life-span of 3-5 years.

Diet.The Ranlesh hunts by using its high frequency pulse to detect its prey
(beetles, spiders, even rats etc.). It then
uses
its lightening pace to catch its prey and coil itself around it. As the Ranlesh
squeezes around the prey it secretes a saliva through its skin, which
decomposes
the flesh of the victim and the Randlesh then absorbs the result.

Mating. Ranlesh
are asexual creaturesand split in two
if they become too long. This happens
approximately every full year.

Myth/Lore.It is told in legends that these
weird creatures were first made by an evil
mage during
SW I by corrupting masses of common snakes in order to infiltrate enemy castles and killfrom
within,However, they
are said to have escaped into the
Seanian swamps of Ancyros and
proved
too dangerous to catch as the Ranlesh attacked anyone that tried and too many
casualties were needlessly inflicted.

It was rumoured but has never been confirmed that
Ranlesh started to
appear in various different parts of the Sarvonian continent
just shortly after this event. In 823 b.S. at the
War for Ancyros
when the Caltharian
army
crossed the border to
Erpheronia and attacked
a station of
Erpheronian forces part of the
Erpheronian army is said to
have perished due to Ranlesh injuries when driven into their territory.

The Name Ranlesh actually stands for something that the mage had intended for
them: "Relish All Nocturnal Life Evil Snake Hide".